Returning
by Challenger2011
Summary: It's Emma's first Christmas with her family and Neal has a gift to return that he hopes she'll accept.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time or any of the characters in it.**

**A/N: This is pretty much an AU one-shot, where the Neverland stuff in season 3 never happened and Emma and Neal would have had a chance to work on their relationship. **

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Christmas had never been one of Emma's favorite holidays. It was a holiday for people to be with their families, and needless to say, she hadn't had a family to celebrate the holiday with until recently. When she had been younger, she had tried to enjoy it and a few of her foster families had tried to make it a good experience for her, but in the long scheme of things, it hadn't really mattered. Once she had gotten out of the system, she never celebrated Christmas. She never bought presents or a tree. She avoided Christmas music as much as she could. To her, Christmas was just another day.

But Henry loved it.

He had went on for weeks about how he was excited for Christmas; how he was excited to be celebrating it with his entire family for once – both moms, his dad, and his grandparents. It had been surprising when Regina had actually willingly invited all of them over for Christmas, and Emma was fairly certain that under no other circumstances would Snow White and Prince Charming be celebrating a holiday with the Evil Queen and Rumpelstiltskin. But this was for Henry, and Henry was enough for Emma to try to enjoy Christmas.

So she had decorated a tree with her parents and she had bought presents for them and Henry. She had even let the three of them convince her to buy something for Neal. And now she was on her way to Regina's with Neal beside her in the car, with a slightly uncomfortable silence between them.

Emma and Neal were working through all of their problems, and both of them agreed that they were making progress. Still there were times when neither knew what to say to the other. And now it left Emma wishing that Henry hadn't stayed at Regina's last night, so he could be in the car with her and Neal, making things feel less awkward to her.

"So have you had any good Christmas's?" Emma asked, in an attempt at breaking the silence.

"Not really. We didn't have Christmas in the Enchanted Forest, and I never really got around to celebrating it here until now."

"This is your first Christmas?"

"Yeah, but don't tell anyone. I don't really want a First Christmas ornament on any trees," he grinned. "Actually I thought about it the other day. If August hadn't shown up and we made it to Tallahassee, that would have been where I would have celebrated Christmas for the first time. With you."

The uncomfortable silence started to return and Neal hastened to change the subject.

"So what about you? Any good Christmas experiences?"

"I've never really cared for it. A few foster families gave me presents, and I liked that, but I never cared for Christmas."

"Okay then what was your favorite present?"

"Hilariously enough, it was a doll."

"Em, what's hilarious about a doll?"

"It was a Snow White doll. I don't know why out of any toy they could have picked for me, they picked that, but I loved it."

Neal chuckled, "So you had a doll of your mom and you didn't even know it?"

"Well if anyone had told me that Snow White was my mom back then, I wouldn't have believed them and would've thought that they were crazy."

"So what ended up happening to it?"

Emma was quiet for a moment, "I was sent to a new foster home. Something happened while I was at school and I was sent to the principle's office. They told me that I was going to be going to a new foster home and the family was there to pick me up. The doll was at my old foster home, and the new family hadn't grabbed it when they went to get my clothes and stuff. They apologized for not getting it, but I still remember crying all night because I lost it."

"That must have been rough." As much as Neal tried, he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Well I learned not to get attached to things after that."

The two of them continued the drive to Regina's in silence. Emma was focused on the road, and Neal had slipped his hand into his coat pocket – feeling the familiar form of the swan key chain he had given Emma years ago, the same key chain that she had given him back in Manhattan. Maybe it wasn't the right time to give it back. Sure things seemed to be going pretty good between the two of them, but the key chain that Emma had turned into a necklace held some bad memories for her. What if giving it to her would be a step backwards for them instead of a step forwards?

The moment that she had placed it down and told him that she wore it to remind herself never to trust someone again, part of him had wanted to pick it up and hand it straight back to her. If it reminded her of bad memories, fine, she didn't have to wear it. But it was hers, and he wanted her to keep it. He had known though, that moment never would have been the right time to hand it back to her. So he had picked it up and put it in his pocket. At the time he had thought that one day he would find the right time to return it.

Now he just had to decide if this was it. How would she react to it? Part of him was worried that it wouldn't be very good, but another part was thinking that it wouldn't be too bad. As they pulled up in front of Regina's house, Neal made his decision and he gently grabbed Emma's arm as she started to get out of the yellow bug to stop her.

"Hey, there's something that I want to give you before we go inside."

"Neal, we're the last ones here. Besides everyone opens presents at the same time."

"I know that, but this isn't really a present and I think it would be better for me to give it to you in private. You do have a present from me in there too, my dad and Belle were bringing it over."

"Okay, fine. What is it?"

"Close your eyes." Emma did and Neal took the swan key chain necklace. "Now open them."

Emma stared at it in silence.

"I got you a key chain," Neal said with a small smile.

Hesitantly Emma took it from him, looking at it before she started to speak, "Neal..."

"I know that it holds some bad memories," he said, cutting her off. "So if you never wear it again, I understand. But I got it for you and I want you to have it. And maybe there are some good memories with it too and maybe there could be more good memories that come from it."

Emma stared at the necklace again in silence, before looking back at Neal.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. And Emma, this might not be Tallahassee, but I'm still glad that I get to celebrate my first Christmas with you."

Making a decision of her own, Emma gave Neal a smile before leaning in to kiss him. When she pulled away the two of them smiled at each other until a knocking on the window startled them and caused them to jump. Looking out, they could see Henry there looking at them.

"Are you guys coming in or not? We're all waiting on you!"

"We're coming," Neal laughed, getting out of the car to walk inside with his son.

Emma got out as well, quickly putting the necklace on around her neck before following Henry and Neal inside. While she was saying hi to everyone, Neal caught a glimpse of the necklace and smiled. It might take some time, but maybe this was a sign that eventually things could return to the way they used to be when it came to them.


End file.
